Blizzard has enacted its first Diablo 4major ban wave now that the seasonal “live” model has begun, and it’s for an exploit that surfaced a short while ago. It allowed players to play their Eternal characters on the Seasonal realm, which opened up a range of possibilities like gear and gold transfer from the main game to the temporary seasonal realm.
The exploit involved a tricky process of disconnecting your internet at the right time to log back on and have your Diablo 4Eternal character be Seasonal. But as it was an exploit, it came with the risk of a ban. And those bans have now arrived.
Players are starting to report that they or people they know have been banned for using the exploit. There’s even a story on reddit of one player that was so mad about the ban that he tried to do chargebacks on the game, but ended up with his entire Xbox account banned. That’s…pretty funny.
The reaction to people being banned for using an exploit from the community is essentially “they deserved it.” I would absolutely never use an exploit like that, as you are always risking a ban, no matter what it is, and I was more worried it could potentially damage your character by messing with the two realms.
I’m still not really sure how this specific exploit was actually that harmful, however. When this came up previously, I made the point that seasonal characters are probably better than Eternal ones at baseline due to the heart system, and many have already hit level 100, there are no more softcore or hardcore races going on anymore.
There are vague concerns about PvP balance due to the item or gold transfer abilities for better builds, but I’m still not quite sure I get why this was a huge deal. Again, not against banning people for exploits, I’m just not sure I understand why this one mattered that much, especially with it getting patched so quickly. But here’s what Blizzard’s community manager said about it in the forums:
“I just wanted to let everyone know that this was addressed a few days ago in our last hotfix and hasn’t been present in the game since. We have also actioned on select accounts related to this incident. We appreciate everyone for bringing this to our attention.”
“Actioned” is banned, though there’s no word on the grand total of accounts that might have been banned for this. I am sure this will not be the last exploit that the game has, or the last time people will be banned for using one. Even if this wasn’t necessarily that harmful to the season, I suppose it serves as an object lesson not to use future, potentially worse exploits, lest you risk a ban.
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